Tuesday, January 5, 2016

One night after their
biggest show of the year, New Japan Pro Wrestling ran New Year Dash. It’s set
up like a house show, with many multi-man tag matches but should set the stage
for the upcoming New Beginnings Pay-Per-View.

If you read my review of
Wrestle Kingdom, you’d know that I found the New Japan Rumble to be a blast.
This was more of the same as a lot of the guys involved were used here, with a
mix of legends and Young Lions. Much like in the rumble, this was ridiculous
fun. Cheeseburger was again a highlight, with his act already being over with
the crowd. Fujiwara hilariously slapped him at one point, getting annoyed with
his offense since it failed against the likes of Nakanishi and Nagata. Komatsu
ate the pin in a fun little match that did well as an opener. **½

Ricochet and Matt Sydal def. David Finlay Jr. and Jay White
in 6:46

The newest team in the
junior tag division, Ricochet and Matt Sydal, get themselves a little showcase
here. While I enjoy them, they aren’t really adding anything new to a stale
division. David Finlay Jr. and Jay White have blossomed into a nice little team
actually. They have one of the worst win/loss records in history, but that’s
expected from the Young Lions. They are a unit I’d like to see move into the
ranks of the division. This was kept short so they were able to go at a really
fast pace, which benefitted them. Solid stuff here. Stereo shooting star
presses did the deed. **¾

At Wrestle Kingdom, Jay
Lethal was introduced to the Japanese audience by retaining the ROH World Title
against Michael Elgin. Here, he faced the former CJ Parker in a fine little
match. Juice has been trying to find his footing in NJPW, but I think this was
his first actual singles match. I think this would have been better suited on
the Road to Tokyo Dome to familiarize the crowd with Lethal but I get that the
timing wouldn’t work with Lethal’s US dates. Anyway, this was solid though it
featured a bit too much Martini interaction. Lethal shouldn’t need help to beat
someone in Juice’s position on the card. Fun fact, it was Martini who trained
Juice. He got to do a fun little airplane spin spot to him before falling
victim to the Lethal Injection. **½

Yup. MOTHERFUCKING King
Haku wrestled in this match and looked pretty damn good too. He got involved in
the brawling and got to team with his son, Tama Tonga, which has to be cool.
This was a fun multi-man match, with everyone being on their game. It was the
usual Bullet Club tag but with something just making it better. Maybe it was
having Haku involved, but they seemed fired up. I mean, Haku did a fucking
piledriver. Despite the talk about them leaving, Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows
scored the win on Honma, most likely setting up a rematch at New Beginnings.
That could be their final match. Fun match with the rating bumped up a notch
because of Haku. ***¼

EVIL’s gimmick and entrance
is just too over the top. It doesn’t work for me in the way that a lot of other
gimmicks do. While he is back in the relative midcard for now, Hiroshi
Tanahashi is still insanely over and the tandem with Michael Elgin just works
with the crowd. Even with the lackluster ROH Title match at Wrestle Kingdom, he
and his power offense is still clicking with the fans. Los Ingobernables won
after a ref bump and BUSHI spitting the mist at Dorada. He pinned him with a diving
codebreaker. This was more fine work on the show, keeping a consistent tone.
Los Ingobernables attacked after the match, leading KUSHIDA to try and make the
save. He also got misted and BUSHI challenged him for the Jr. Title. That is a
fresh matchup that I’m looking forward to. We may also be getting
Tanahashi/Naito again, which doesn’t sound bad but also isn’t exciting.
Hopefully Naito comes out on top. ***

When I woke up today, the
post-match angle was the big news, but we’ll get to that in a second. First
off, the match itself was really good. AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had some
great exchanges early on, reminding everyone of their fantastic Wrestle Kingdom
match. Surprisingly, the stuff between Kenny Omega and Nakamura was also very
interesting. Even more surprisingly, Omega pinned Nakamura with the One Winged
Angel. Then the big angle happened. As the victors celebrated, Omega attacked
Styles, hitting him with the One Winged Angel as well. The rest of the Bullet
Club ran out to calm things down. As AJ got helped to his feet, Omega and the
Young Bucks hit him with a triple superkick. The rest of the group joined in on
the assault, ending with Omega planting Styles with a Styles Clash (with
superkicks from the Bucks involved). Omega cut a promo about how Styles is
fired and that he won’t be challenging KUSHIDA for the title he lost the night
before. He calls himself a heavyweight and is going after Nakamura and the IC
Title. While I’m not a big Omega fan, this was expertly done as he is now solidified
on the fast track to some sort of major role. After the Bullet Club left, AJ
Styles was serenaded by chants from Korakuen Hall and he bowed to them,
seemingly as a goodbye. If he ever does return, he’ll be a big time babyface.
If he doesn’t, it was a thank you for some phenomenal, pun intended, years. ***¼

Oh my goodness, Meiyu Tag
and reDRagon together? What a fucking team. The other side isn’t too shabby
either. Outside of the previous angle, this whole match was my favorite thing
on the card. The interactions between everyone was great. Ishii and Shibata
went to war, Roppongi Vice and reDRagon were their usual selves and the stuff
between Goto and Okada was great. The best parts of this though, was seeing
Okada and Ishii work reDRagon. I would love to see Okada/O’Reilly when Okada
visits ROH in a few months. Goto would make Barreta tap out to win for his
guys. Before he left though, Okada got on the microphone. I read that he kind
of ran down Goto for wanting to unify the IC and Heavyweight Titles a few
months back. Goto beat Okada in the G1, but since then, Goto lost the IC Title,
which Okada was sure to point out. It looks like Goto/Okada at New Beginnings,
which should be fun. ***¾

NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship: The Briscoes
and Toru Yano (c) def. Bad Luck Fale and IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team
Champions The Young Bucks in 11:02

The newest title in NJPW
got defended a day after being created. I honestly would have put the
Okada/Goto stuff on last. I get that this was a title match, but it doesn’t
feel like a main event to me. This was good old fashioned fun. I’ve gone on
record many times in saying I don’t like the Young Bucks, but the Briscoes and Toru
Yano are enough to make up for it. Yano was his usual self, calling for BREAK
after BREAK and having fun at Fale’s expense. The exchanges between the Bucks
and Briscoes were fine but nothing new for them. I like the addition of the
Briscoes, especially Mark, so far. They retained with a Jay Driller/Froggy Bow
combination to cap a fun little main event. ***

Overall: 7/10. If you hadn’t
noticed by my words, this was a really fun show. Nothing about it was MOTY
contender level, but that’s fine because it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of
event. It did a great job of giving us really fun matches and setting the stage
for future programs. It was one of the more noteworthy non-PPVs I can think of
in New Japan. An easy three hour watch